It's a tough one to get right but think clubs do need to be realistic about where they enter teams. Perhaps some sort of grading system prior to the season could be good, but then of course you'd have half the players still playing cricket so that couldn't happen. Think some sort of grading at the start should at least happen for new teams where it may not be clear what their level is.
At North Wellington last season I was put in a new team that was entered in Cap 6. There were 2 or 3 of us who had played at that sort of level before but the majority of the team were under 21s playing their first season of senior football. The U21 league had been cancelled due to their only being 4 teams, 3 of which were from North Wellington so the club had all these U21 players to put somewhere. And without wanting to cause any offence, 20 and 21 year olds still playing in U21s usually don't tend to be the elite players of that age group as those would be playing for first/reserve teams or already playing in senior grades. Consequently Cap 6 was way too high and we lost 8-0 every week, even to the other teams down the bottom and noone enjoyed it. One case where a brand new team should have been entered down the bottom, or at least some sort of grading might have helped to decide what a suitable level was.
People may have laughed at the results, but we trained twice a week and gave it everything we had, but it was unfortunately just too high a level. I assume the club already had that cap 6 spot and didn't want to give it up, but it should have been clear from the start that the team placed there wasn't up to that level.
Shame how it worked out as I had just moved to Johnsonville and it was convenient for me to play at a club where training and home games were just down the road, but now this year I've ended up playing elsewhere across town in order to avoid being put at an unsuitable level again.